Salatiel, Pharrell Williams, Beyoncé - WATER (Official Audio)
She’s written hits with Cardie B, Drake and even Beyoncé and Jay Z and there aren't many who could make such claims aged 22. A precocious genius, Nija Charles started writing seriously when she was 13, in New Jersey, when she was given a mini-keyboard. The teenager was drawn more to the production side of the industry, but when she started singing, the song writing naturally followed.
Like so many artists of her generation, success came to the American via Instagram, where she published her own demos, that caught the attention of rappers and singers from all over the USA. Quickly Nija Charles left her course at New York University, where she’d been set to visit Berlin, and instead moved to Los Angeles to devote herself to music full time. A pretty natural decision for the girl with a DJ for a dad, a dancer for a mother and producers for an uncle and aunt.
Cardi B - Ring (feat. Kehlani) [Official Video
It was in 2017 that things really started accelerating for Nija Charles, as she began to write for well-known R’n’B stars such as Flo Rida with the track Hola and Chris Brown with Pull Up. In just two years her repertoire diversified with work with the rapper Cardi B for whom she wrote the tracks Ring and I, on her first album Invasion of Privacy, which went platinum in the US and Canada. The young the lyricist also began working with singers she’s always been a fan of, like the Californian Kehlani: “It was crazy, only a year earlier, I’d been at her concert! My sister and I went down to Baltimore to see her. As a big fan, hearing her sing my own lyrics was just… madness. ” Moving between pop singers and rappers, Nija Charles prefers to sail between genres to avoid the boredom ever setting in.
On her list of things to do in 2019, Nija Charles had “write three tracks for the Top 10” and “start making music again”. One year later and the young woman has seven Grammy nominations under her belt, and is getting ready to launch her own project. In March 2020, she took a trip into the fashion world, by becoming the face of Nike for their UNDFTD Air Max 90 campaign, alongside the actor and internet sensation Demetrius Harmon.
